TOUR DE FRANCE CARAVAN HISTORY

Après quelques discussions, je réalise maintenant quelques articles pour PEZ CYCLING NEWS. Quelques articles généraux sur la caravane, les véhicules, si possible quelques interviews (Gillou étant donné que tu feras une étape cette année, il se peut que tu sois ma première victime...), des infos sur les miniatures pendant l'hiver à priori...

Je recopierai ici à chaque fois une partie de l'article et le lien vers le document complet.

THE BRIEF HISTORY
The Tour de France was created in 1903 by the newspaper “L’Auto” as a way to sell more papers. During the 1920s, the interest for the Tour decreased because of agreements between the small number of powerful teams. Teams were sponsored by the bicycle manufacturers and the winner was not so important as long as he was riding the best bike! Added to that, between 1919 and 1929 only one Frenchman won the race, which gave French fans even less reason to follow the race. In fact some bike makers (like Alcyon) were too powerful with respect to the organizers.



In 1930, Henri Desgranges, director of the race decided to replace the sponsored teams by national teams but had to find new ways to finance the organisation (bikes, hotels, food…). Helped by Paul Thévenin, the marketing director of Menier Chocolates, he had the idea to create the Caravan composed of cars praising their products. The Menier chocolate was already following the race in 1929 with a Latil truck equipped with a loud speaker praising the good taste of the chocolates. But the small caravan was so long after the race that sometimes nobody was there to see it… !

In 1930, the caravan was moderately appreciated by the press but people along the road already loved it. Joining the Menier vehicles, a 2 meter wide Bayard alarm-clocks rangs every two minutes, and a giant Black Lion proposed better polishing to the frightened spectators.

For that first year, besides the three Hotchkiss and four Latil trucks of the organizers, nearly 40 vehicles were in the caravan promoting food, alcohol drinks, clothes… All had been seen by nearly 10 million people and French Author Tristan Bernard summarized it writing that the “Tour de France puts France in the doorway”.



In 1935 the light truck and small car from the QUINTONINE beverage: “The smallest car of the world to the service of the best tonic beverage” Postcard collection P.O.

La suite ici ...